Lauren McAllister

Lauren's Story

Lauren was attracted to studying at the University of Stirling because after learning of the impressive experience of its staff and its high rating for student experience. She embarked on a PhD, juggling her studies with her full-time teaching role as a senior lecturer and caring for her four-year-old.

She said: “I manage a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Postgraduate programme at the University of Northampton, and I’m also a mother to a wonderfully autistic four-year-old. She is fantastic, but it has been difficult managing the often sleepless nights, demanding job and the completion of a PhD.”

Describing her time with Stirling as “challenging, worthwhile and inspiring” Lauren is planning to continue working in her current role, but is looking forward to undertaking more research thanks to the contacts she developed while studying.

Lauren added: “I would like to share some words of inspiration with future PhD applicants who are worried they may not be ‘good enough’: Studying is hard, especially when you have other demands, but if you have the support system around you, and the determination to keep going – you will be brilliant.

“I took many years to complete my PhD – much longer than I had intended – but I did it, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Find out more about studying for a PhD at the University of Stirling